Basic rules
Introduction No Shuffle! is an “open source” card game by Charles Zheng In No Shuffle!, each player has their own 20 cards, from which they play cards in an effort to be the first to gain 20 points. As the name suggests, no shuffling, or random elements of any kind are involved. Instead, the “Zodiac Rule” ensures that the game stays unpredictable despite its deterministic nature. THE ZODIAC RULE The “Zodiac” consists of five different signs: each card has as its “input sign” one of five signs, and an “output sign” which is another one of the five signs. A player may only play a card whose input sign matches the output sign of the card played by the previous player. The Zodiac Rule enables clever players to foil their opponent’s plans while accelerating their own--alternatively, it creates opportunities for unpredictability and surprise in casual play. FEATURES Gameplay is extremely interactive--due to the Zodiac rule, you will be affecting your next opponent whether you intend to or not! Combined with the fact that the same card can be unfairly good or disastrously bad depending on the time which it is played, the result is a game in which seemingly minor choices can cascade to dramatically change the course of the game. In multiplayer games, the Zodiac rule incentivizes the formation of temporary alliances to enter complex negotiations for agreeing on a sequence of plays. In one-on-one duels, players can make brilliant short-term “sacrifices”, which turn out to give them the advantage several turns later. Casual players will find the game easy to learn and easy to play, requiring very few components other than cards, a table, and a notepad or tokens to keep score. Advanced players seeking to optimize their draft play will find the need to memorize every card allowed in their format. Even though players are allowed to view their opponent’s cards or consult references while playing the game, players will need to be quite familiar with every card’s Zodiac signs before they will be able to master the game’s strategy. This memorization requirement might dissuade many players from mastering the game, but it also provides a way to reward those players who manage to gain an encyclopedic knowledge of the game, either through study or frequent play. More details are given in the Design Philosophy. As an “open source” game, players are highly encouraged to design their own cards, and to submit them to a “No Shuffle!” wiki, and/or try to get them incorporated into the card pool used by their playgroup. Since no shuffling is involved in the game, it is easy to incorporate custom designed cards--one can simply write the card information on an index card and begin using it in games. The game designer has listed a number of design guidelines to ensure that designed cards work smoothly within the No Shuffle! framework. Rules GAME SETUP Players decide decks using one of the three methods discussed in the “DECK CONSTRUCTION” section. In casual games, turn order can be decided arbitrarily. In competitive games, Players will bid for the right to determine turn order. However, the order in which the players make bids may be determined randomly. Each player publicly places one bid, in point values from 20 to 40. The player making the highest bid wins the auction. In case of a tie, the player who made the earliest bid wins the auction. The winner of the auction will have to reach the bidded point value to win the game. However, they earn the right to choose the turn order. The last player in the turn order now chooses an initial sign from the five signs of the zodiac. The first player in the turn order must play a card with an input sign matching the initial sign. GAMEPLAY Each player has a deck, a new card zone, a field, and a discard pile. The deck consists of cards the player can choose to play each turn, in accordance with the Zodiac Rule. Whenever the player plays a card, they place it into their New Card zone and resolve its effects. At the beginning of their next turn, they will place the card into their field “untapped”. Cards can either be “tapped” or “untapped”; depending on the game materials, “tapped” cards can be indicated by turning them sideways 90 degrees, placing a counter on them, or flipping them over. Cards in the deck are initially untapped. Cards in the field may be discarded as a result of card effects: they are moved to the discard pile. Players take turns according to the turn order decided in the game setup. Each turn consists of four phases: 1) START OF TURN PHASE: The player’s card in the New Card zone may have a “delayed effect” which is executed at this time. Any cards in the New Card zone are moved to the player's field, untapped. 2) ABILITY PHASE: Any of the player’s cards in the deck, field, or discard may have various “card abilities” which can be used during this phase. The player may elect to use any number of these card abilities in any order. 3) PLAY PHASE: The player plays a new card in accordance with the Zodiac rule: that is, the input sign of the card must match the output sign of the previous player's card in the New Card zone. Furthermore, the player cannot choose any tapped card if an untapped card with the correct input sign is available. 4) END OF TURN PHASE: All players check their victory conditions at the end of any player’s turn. The game cannot be ended at any other time. WINNING THE GAME If if during any player’s end phase, that player or any other player meets their victory conditions, the game is ended and a single winner is determined. If the player last in the turn order has played their last card remaining in their deck, the game is ended on that player’s end phase, and a single winner is determined. If multiple players meet their victory conditions, the player with the most points among them wins the game, unless multiple players are tied for most points. If multiple players meeting their victory conditions are tied for most points, then the winner is the player placed latest in the turn order among them. If all players have run out of cards to play, then the winner of the game is the player with the most points, unless multiple players are tied for most points. If multiple players are tied for most points, then the winner is the player placed latest in the turn order among them. SPECIAL RULES Negative points: A player’s points must take non-negative integer values. If the effect of a card would decrease a player’s points below zero, then the player’s points are set to zero instead. Tapping: Many cards have “tap abilities”: abilities which require the card to be untapped on the field, which then tap the card and execute some additional effect. Alaternatively, some cards can tap cards in a player's deck, which limits when those tapped cards can be played. Symbols: Some cards have one or more or a certain type of symbol; effects can depend on the total number of such symbols on cards owned by a player. Symbols are indicated in plaintext by the enclosing name of the symbol, e.g. {TECH}. Active player: Some cards have effects that may trigger on the turn of a player other than the card's owner. If those triggered effects involve making decisions, the player who has the current turn, called the active player, must make those decisions. Ownership: At the start of the game, a player owns all 20 of the cards in his deck. However, ownership of cards can be transferred. In tabletop play, player should have a clearly defined play area: transfer of ownership is indicated by moving the card to the play area. Attaching and detaching: Cards can be attached to other cards. This is indicated by placing the attaching card below or under the card to which it attaches. A card attached to another card is said to be an attachment of the card to which it attaches. If one player's card is attached to another player's card, the attached card transfers ownership to the owner of the card to which it attaches. If that card is later detached it generally does not transfer back to its original owner. A card can only be attached to one card at a time. If a card already attached to a card is attached to another card, it also detaches from the card to which it was originally attached. Also, a card loses all of its attachments (that is, all of its attachments detach from the card) when it is attached to another card. THE ZODIAC SIGNS The five signs of the zodiac are a circle, an hourglass shape, a triangle, a square, and a star (pentagram). In this document the five signs will be represented as follows. O: First sign of the zodiac, a circle. X: Second sign, an hourglass A: Third sign, a triangle H: Fourth sign, a square S: Fifth sign, a star (pentagram) Deck Construction There are three ways to play No Shuffle! The first way, which is most suitable for beginners, is for each player to choose from one of three pre-built decks. The second way is for each player to custom build their own 20-card deck, subject to the restriction that they must have 4 cards of every sign, and that for each zodiac sign, they have at most 4 cards which activate that sign, and have at most 4 “SUPER” cards. The third, and most advanced way is for the players to build their decks on the spot by drafting them: that is, taking turns to build their decks one card at a time. BASIC DRAFTING The drafting process mimics the game. First, players bid for turn order as outlined in “Game Setup”. The player last in the turn order chooses an initial sign for drafting. (They will again choose an initial sign when the game starts.) The player first in the turn order chooses a card with an input sign matching the initial sign. The next player chooses a card with an input sign matching the output sign of the previous player's pick. This continues until all players have chosen 20 cards: the last player’s last card must satisfy the additional restriction that its activated sign matches the initial sign that they chose at the beginning of the draft. Furthermore, players may not pick more than 4 “SUPER” cards. Players are allowed to create and draft a “blank” card with their choice of primary sign and activated sign but with no name or abilities: this can be done any number of times, and can necessary to avoid breaking deck restrictions. Note that drafted decks may have unbalanced numbers of cards in each sign. However, the drafting process outlined before ensures that the counts of primary signs for one player matches the counts of the activated signs of the player next in the turn order: this ensures that all of the players will be able to continually play cards in accordance with the Zodiac Rule. HARDCORE DRAFTING While the most basic form drafting is already an extremely advanced way to play the game, there is an even more advanced form of drafting, which is especially suitable for playing the game with a large pool of cards. Any card designed for Hardcore Drafting has an input sign, and output sign, and also a secondary input sign which is only used in drafting. First, players bid for turn order as outlined in “Game Setup”. Following the turn order, each player will choose an initial sign. Then, the first player in the turn order will pick a card whose input sign matches the initial sign chosen by the last player in the turn order, and whose secondary input sign matches the second-to-last player in the turn order. The next player in the turn order will pick a card whose input sign matches the output sign of the previous player's pick, and whose secondary sign matches the initial sign chosen by the player preceding the previous player. If there are only two players, of course, the player proceeding the previous player will the be player himself. This continues each players have picked 20 cards; the last player's final card must satisfy the additional restriction that its output sign match the initial sign chosen by the same player. The only other restriction imposed on deckbuilding is that each player may only choose up to 4 “SUPER” cards. As in basic drafting, players have the option of creating and drafting “blank” cards with their choice of primary sign, secondary sign, and activated sign, but no name or abilities. EXAMPLE CARDS For purposes of illustrating the game, a set of example cards is provided in Example cards. An extensive list of “open-source” card sets and individual cards is hosted on no-shuffle.wikia.com. Legal Notice The author, Charles Zheng, dedicates the rules of the game No Shuffle! to the public domain under the CC0 license (http://creativecommons.org/about/cc0).